The term "Digesta of Justinian" is commonly understood as a collection of legal norms, which was a compilation of the works of Roman jurists. This document, created in 530-533, by order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (the photo of the mosaic with his portrait opens the article) was included in the code of laws, then united under the general title "Roman civil law" and subsequently had a great influence on the formation of the entire world jurisprudence.
Laws consecrated by the names of emperors
The peculiarity of ancient Roman jurisprudence was that it provided for the commission of all procedural acts exclusively by professional lawyers, whose scope of activity included: drafting claims and processing transactions, speaking in court on behalf of defendants, as well as conducting civil and criminal cases.
The authority of the most prominent lawyers was unusually high, and their opinion sometimes had more weight than the law, under which the issue under consideration fell within the court. This state of affairs was largely facilitated by the supremerulers. For example, there is an edict issued by Octavian Augustus (63 BC - 14), in which he ordered the opinion expressed by the most prominent jurists to be equated with the expression of the imperial will. A photo of his sculpture is shown below.
Moreover, he established the so-called right of answers, giving lawyers the power to dictate their decision to high-ranking officials. A similar position was subsequently taken by his successor Tiberius, who ruled from 14 to 37. Thus, the Digesta is a code of laws, consecrated by the names of Roman crowned bearers.
An empire in crisis
The prerequisite for the creation of the laws of the Digest was the situation that prevailed in the Roman Empire by the middle of the 3rd century and was marked by a crisis in all areas of life caused by the exorbitant expansion of imperial power. A characteristic feature of this period was the decline of jurisprudence.
The rulers, who headed the greatest, at that time, empire two centuries after Octavian Augustus and Tiberius, largely limited the powers of lawyers, abolishing the institution of the “right of answers” and assuming the role of the supreme arbiter on all controversial issues. This state of affairs contributed to the adoption of biased decisions, often dictated not by the essence of the case under consideration, but only by the mood in which the crowned man was at that time. It is generally accepted that this was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire that followed soon after.
HeirsRoman law
Digests are a set of laws, although drawn from Roman jurisprudence, but compiled and published already in Byzantium - the eastern part of the great empire that had collapsed by that time. In 527, an extremely ambitious emperor, Justinian I, ascended her throne, dreaming not only of going down in history thanks to military victories, but also of gaining the laurels of a legislator. Byzantine law at that time was based on laws inherited from Rome, but in an extremely chaotic state. Many of them contradicted each other, and some of the legal literature was not available for use.
The book Digests of Justinian, which became widely known already in the period of modern history, was the result of works to systematize and streamline the legal framework that Byzantium inherited from Rome. It should be noted that Justinian himself did not work on the now known edition of the code of laws, although in all editions of this work his name is put on the title page. The true author of the Digest is a major Byzantine dignitary of the 6th century Tribonian, who was entrusted with this troublesome business. It is not uncommon in history when laurels go not to the performer, but to the one who gave the order.
Titanic work
Three years after his accession to the throne, the ambitious Justinian issued a special decree, on the basis of which a commission was created, consisting of four professors of jurisprudence and eleven of the most prominent lawyers and headed by the above-mentioned Tribonian. Before her stooda truly daunting task is to disassemble and systematize the entire legal heritage of Roman jurists, excluding clearly outdated normative acts from it.
To imagine the amount of work to be done, it is enough to say that lawyers had to study in detail and put into proper order 2,000 (!) books containing about 3 million lines of handwritten text. By modern standards, this corresponds to 3 thousand printed sheets or 100 full-length volumes.
Organization of work on the Code of Laws
In Byzantium, the author of Digest (the real author is Tribonian) knowingly enjoyed the reputation of a highly wise statesman who had the ability to safely get out of the most difficult situations. He did not let his crowned boss down this time either, dividing the members of the group entrusted to him into three subcommittees, before each of which he set a specific and clearly formulated task.
Thus, the members of the first group de alt exclusively with issues related to "civilian", that is, national law, which was widely developed in Rome and then had no analogues in world practice. Their colleagues from the second subcommittee were instructed to study and edit, taking into account the requirements of the current moment, the works of such luminaries of Roman law as Publius Celsus, Ulpian, Gaius and Modestinus. As for the members of the third group, they, dealing with issues of civil law, had to delve into the writings of Scaevola, Paul and Ulpian. Thus, compiled in Byzantium and extantto our time, the Digests are the result of the work of a whole team of lawyers headed by Tribonian.
Completion of three years of work
Based on the notes left by the direct executors of this project, as well as an in-depth analysis of the texts compiled by them, the researchers note the extraordinary thoroughness with which the assigned work was done. It was established, in particular, that the members of the commission used mainly original manuscripts, and only in extreme cases they were replaced by later copies. In addition, all quotations from legal treatises included in the Roman Digests and which served as source material for the members of the commission were subject to scrupulous verification.
Such a large-scale project was carried out within three years, and in mid-December 533, it was adopted by Emperor Justinian, who approved it as a set of current laws of the Byzantine Empire and put his own name on the title page. At the same time, an imperial decree was issued, according to which, under pain of the most severe punishment, it was forbidden to give comments to the Digests. Officially, it was announced that this could distort the opinion of ancient authors, but in fact, Justinian sought to solely own the right to interpret laws.
The postulates that became the basis of Byzantine laws
Since the Byzantine Digests are a compilation of the works of Roman authors, they were based on the postulates put forward by them, many of which remain relevant andto this day. So, in case of ambiguity of the rights of the litigants, the court is obliged to give preference to the defendant, not the plaintiff, and if not a single normative act is suitable for this case, then one should be guided by elementary justice. In addition, the most important provisions of the Digest are the prohibitions to consider a person guilty before it has been proven in court, and to punish twice for the same criminal act.
Christian principles of legislation
It should also be noted the emphasis made by the drafters of the document on the need to approach sentencing taking into account not only the law, under which the committed crime or civil litigation falls, but humanism and justice, which are the basis of the Christian dogma, which was the state religion of Byzantium. One of the articles of the document even points out that natural justice should prevail over the letter of the law. As you know, the legislative norms of the pre-existing states of the Ancient World did not know anything of the kind.
